The ODT has a piece today about AgResearch's work on genetically modifying grass to reduce methane emissions from cattle. According to the article, they have something which they think works, and are seeking the support of the dairy industry for field trials to test it (which I guess means growing a bunch of it, feeding it to cows, and measuring their resulting gas output). If successful, they estimate that such crops could benefit the economy by $300 million a year - though it is not clear how much of that is the result of emissions reduction and how much is due to consequently bigger cows.
This is a good use for GM, and worth trialling. Unlike most GM applications, it seems to have positive environmental benefits, rather than just being about helping Monsanto to sell more pesticides. And once we have hard data on its effectiveness, we can decide whether its seriously worth pursuing. There are obvious ways in which genetic modification could help in the fight against climate change (GM trees tweaked for greater carbon uptake is an obvious possibility), and this is one of them.
